Читать книгу The Life and Adventures of Ben Hogan, the Wickedest Man in the World - Ben Hogan - Страница 6

Table of Contents

A Remarkable Game of Poker and What Came of it—Ben as a Pirate—Fast Life in New York—How he gave a Combination Show in Oswego.

After remaining in New York for a short time, Hogan returned to Syracuse, where he opened a boxing-room. His rates for instruction were certainly low enough, the price for a lesson being fixed at three cents. He became a member of Hose Company No. 4, and was well known throughout the city as a boy who could use his fists to good advantage.

Syracuse, however, did not ofter attractions enough to keep our hero long within its borders. He struck out again for himself, and drifted to the West, where occurred an incident of tragic interest.

By a stroke of remarkable luck, Ben had invested five dollars in a St. Louis lottery—which city he had reached in the course of his wanderings—and the number which he bought drew a prize of seven hundred and fifty dollars. With this money in his pocket, Ben determined to visit New Orleans. On the trip down the Mississippi he fell in with a party of professional gamblers, who used to infest the boats in those days.

Although Ben, as we know, had already knocked about the world a good deal, he was comparatively ignorant of cards. Draw-poker, which was the great game on Mississippi steamers, he knew little about. He had played it once or twice, and learned to hold a pair or flush when he got them; but the intricate points of the science he had not mastered. This explanation is necessary that the reader may understand what follows. The gamblers in question succeeded in persuading Ben to sit down to a quiet little game. He alternately won and lost for some time, when one of the players dealt him four aces. Of course Ben went his last dollar on this hand. The money was promptly covered by one of the sharpers, and at last the call was made.

“I’ve got four aces!” exclaimed Ben, showing his hand, and making a move as if to take in the money.

“One minute!” said the gambler. “I beat your four aces. I have got five jacks!”

Ben looked a little dazed.

“The money is certainly his,” said one of the cappers, who had led Ben into the game.

“But I thought,” stammered Ben, “I thought four aces beat anything in the pack.”

“So they do,” replied the oily-tongued sharper; “anything except five of a kind. Of course five jacks are better than four aces. There’s no question about that. And of course the money is mine!”

Saying this, he raked in Ben’s seven hundred dollars, leaving the young fellow without a cent.

Hogan couldn’t exactly get it through his head how he could have lost the money with four aces; but, as explained above, he was too ignorant of the game to detect the swindle.

He went to the captain, hoping to get some explanation, but that functionary declined to listen to his story. He said he must settle his gambling disputes as best he could.

Then he went back to the sharpers, and begged them to let him have twenty-five or thirty dollars, as he had lost every penny; but they refused to give up a dollar.

Ben was dazed and half-maddened by his loss. Finally he told the gamblers that he would find somebody else on the boat to be fleeced, providing they would give him a percentage of the spoils. This they readily agreed to do, and so Ben went up on to the hurricane deck in search of a victim.

There he fell in with rather of a green merchant, who soon revealed to him the fact that he had between fifteen and sixteen hundred dollars about his person. Ben invited him down to play. As they were passing through the gangway, a sudden impulse seized Hogan to possess himself of this stranger’s money at any hazard. The gangway was open at either end, and as they were passing close to the unguarded space, Ben pretended to trip, falling against the stranger and knocking him overboard; but he immediately shouted and jumped into the water, with a view to save the unfortunate fellow.

It may not be wise to enter into these details too fully; but it may be said that the merchant struggled to the surface alive. Furthermore, when Ben was dragged on board the boat, he had not about him the fifteen hundred and odd dollars which had previously belonged to the stranger. It is a wonder that the latter was not swallowed by an alligator. But how the money was allowed to rest in his pocket must remain a mystery.

Hogan continued his trip to New Orleans, but did not engage in any more draw-poker with the gentlemen who were accustomed to hold five jacks. If the money had come to him in a doubtful manner, it went in the same way. He drifted about for a few weeks, and finally brought up in Charleston without a dollar.

Now comes a period in his career which for wild adventure and hairbreadth escapes surpasses any romance. Finding himself in Charleston with no money and nothing to do, he determined to “make a raise” in some manner, whatever it might be. Money was his god, and he was prepared to lay burnt offerings or any other kind of offerings upon the altar. The opportunity came to him in a remarkable way.

Late one night Ben was sitting in a saloon near the docks when a black-haired, savage-faced man entered the place, and, taking three fingers of brandy straight, sat down near our hero. After eyeing him intently for a few minutes, he said:

“Would you like a job?”

“I should like nothing better,” answered Ben.

The man dropped his voice to a whisper.

“Are you particular about the kind of work?”

“I am ready for anything,” answered our hero.

The stranger cast a look about the room to see that nobody was watching them, and then bending down, said. “I am a pirate!”

The announcement did not in the least disconcert Ben. On the contrary, he expressed his perfect willingness to join the black craft, and on the day following he sailed out of Charleston on board the “Sphinx.” It is, perhaps, unnecessary to explain that the real name of this ship is not given. In this narrative, however, “Sphinx” will serve as well as any other word to designate the craft.

During the six months that Ben Hogan sailed under the flag of the skull and cross-bones he encountered adventures enough to fill a larger volume than this. As he has since described it, he lost all semblance to humanity, and became more like a wild beast than a man. Among the rich booty which the “Sphinx” succeeded in capturing was a ship returning from the Bahama Islands with a chest of gold and jewels valued at two hundred thousand dollars. After this prize had been securely stored away in the “Sphinx” a quarrel arose as to the distribution of the treasure. The pirate captain refused to share with the men on equal terms. Ben, although the youngest of the crew, was made spokesman, and threatened that unless the chief came to terms, he would put him where he would care very little what became of the booty. At this, the captain dealt him a blow with his fist, but he found that he had tackled a bad customer. The Sailor Boy sailed into his black-whiskered antagonist, and gave him such a thrashing as he had never had before. This at once made a hero of Ben, and the crew placed their former chief in irons, and kept him there until the end of the cruise.

From that time forward Ben was the real commander of the ship; space prevents a fuller description of his exploits; nor, indeed would it be wise to give in detail all that happened during his voyage. Suffice it to say that at the end of six months the young pirate abandoned his wild life, and drifted back to New York with fifty thousand dollars in his pockets.

Other men of his class would have spent this money, if they had spent it at all, in the low groggeries on Water street. Not so Ben Hogan. The pirate of yesterday was changed into an elaborately dressed gentleman to-day. His quiet manner and respectful bearing carried him into circles which his former companions could never have entered. In the costliest of broadcloth, with a magnificent diamond upon his immaculate shirt-front, Ben moved among the “bloods” of New York, a brilliant but unknown star.

And a jolly life he led of it while his “boodle” lasted. A good deal has been written about the extravagance of Jim Fisk during his palmy days; but Fisk never spent money half as recklessly as did Ben Hogan when he struck New York at that time. In a single day he went through with seven hundred dollars, simply for wine and cigars. In company with a very beautiful, but not over-virtuous woman, he drove through Fifth avenue in an open coach drawn by four white horses, drinking champagne as he went. He stepped into a small saloon on Cortlandt street one day and asked the proprietor what he considered the establishment worth.

“Five hundred dollars,” was the answer.

Ben pulled out an immense roll of bank-notes, laid a five-hundred-dollar bill upon the bar, and told the man to “clear out.” The astonished bar keeper took the money, and did as directed. Then Hogan invited the “setters” about the place to help themselves to whatever they wanted, and wound up by presenting the establishment, with all its fixtures, to an old man whom he had never seen before.

It goes without saying that this sort of career soon made a serious hole in his pile. Living in elegant up-town apartments; supporting half a dozen women in princely style; drinking nothing but the choicest wines, and scattering his money on every side, it did not take very long to go through the entire fifty thousand dollars. It should be remembered that he was still a mere boy, but he showed himself quite a man in recklessness and extravagance.

When his last dollar had been parted with, Ben again became a vagabond in search of work. He was glad to take up with anything that offered itself, and that anything was a job on a tow-boat. He made two trips, during which he found time to thrash the mate—for which little service the captain of the boat thanked him sincerely. His reputation as a boxer began to spread, and under the belief that he had learned all there was to learn of the manly art, he once more returned to Syracuse, intending to remain there permanently.

In the building known as Malcolm Hall, at the corner of Railroad and Salina streets, he opened a gymnasium, in company with a teacher of elocution. He made all his own apparatus, spring-boards, bars, etc., and even turned his own Indian clubs. It was his ambition, at this time, to become the strongest man in the world. He put himself upon a diet of raw beef, rye or Graham bread, and drank nothing but milk, with an occasional glass of ale. With the beef he ate large quantities of onions, which probably helped to prevent any bad effects which the meat might have produced.

It was during his sojourn in Syracuse at this time that he engaged in a glove contest with Anthony Kelly, a boxer of considerable local reputation. Kelly was a most expert representative of the manly art, and the contest excited a good deal of attention. It was won by Hogan, after a very spirited and lively set-to.

Under the training and diet already described, Ben gained rapidly in strength, and became a model of muscular development. He lifted, at that time, fifteen hundred pounds, and he could hold out ninety-five pounds with any one of his fingers. He continued the diet of raw beef for four years, and would probably have gone on eating it indefinitely had he not been warned by physicians that it was injurious for him.

An amusing incident occured in his life at this period. He happened to visit Oswego (the scene of his early housekeeping) and while there attended the “Naiad Queen,” brought out under Capt. Smith’s management. The show was one that would hardly have passed muster in a New York theatre, but it drew a big house in Oswego, and it gave Ben an idea. Returning to Syracuse he got a lot of posters printed, setting forth, in glowing terms, the attractions of “a monster combination,” in which would appear Ben Hogan, “the strongest man in the world,” and a host of other stars. With these bills and some other traps he made his way again to Oswego. Not having any agent and not being flush enough to call upon a regular bill-poster, he donned an old suit of clothes, smeared his face with dirt, and set out to post himself.

Wherever he put up one of the bills, a crowd would naturally gather around and pass comments upon the “monster combination.”

“Who is this Ben Hogan, anyway?” was the general inquiry.

“Why, didn’t you ever hear of him?” Ben would reply. “He’s a bad man, I tell you—the strongest man in the world. I know him myself, and if you don’t want to miss the biggest show ever seen, you won’t stay away!”

In this way, the talkative bill-poster set the town on the qui vive to see the “monster combination.” Meantime, laying aside the old clothes, Ben appeared in a striking costume, which he had prepared expressly for the occasion. It consisted of a low-crowned, broad-brimmed silk hat, a short cut-away coat, a pair of very tight trowsers, and a flaming neckerchief. Thus arrayed, he made his appearance at the hotel and in the streets. Wherever he went somebody was sure to turn around and ask:

“Who is that?”

A friend of Ben’s, who professed not to know him, was on hand every time to answer.

“That,” he would say, “that is Ben Hogan. Greatest boxer in the country—strongest man in the world. If you want a big thing you’ll go to his show to-night!”

The result of all this was that when evening came the house was packed. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the “monster combination” was composed entirely of Hogan. The bills announced first a “daring act upon the trapeze,” which Ben, dressed in tights, and with enough chalk and paint upon his face to disguise him, undertook to perform. The undertaking was not altogether a success. In the midst of one of his most thrilling feats, he lost his balance and fell to the stage. If there had been any walnuts or things under him, he would have certainly cracked them into fine pieces, for he came down with force enough to shake the building. The audience was stricken with horror, but the trapeze performer managed to get off of the stage and the show went on. The next feature, according to the programme, was a tumbling act by one of the “Whitney Brothers.” Ben again appeared, with more chalk and paint on his face, and did the act to the entire satisfaction of the spectators. Then the other Whitney brother, in the person of Ben, was seen upon the horizontal bar. And finally, Hogan himself came bowing on to the stage, and was greeted with tremendous applause, nobody in the house suspecting that he had been seen before. Ben did several feats, including the breaking of a stone upon his breast, and the entertainment wound up with a boxing contest between Hogan and one of the local celebrities. Altogether the show was a big success, and the audience went home perfectly satisfied.

Ben made some excuse for the non-appearance of the “Whitney Brothers” at the hotel, and as the show yielded three hundred dollars, it is safe to assume that the “brothers” got their salaries in full.